


Four Perfect Minutes

by PoppyAlexander



Series: Johnlock ficlets [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dancing, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Tumblr ficlet, favourite songs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-05 09:51:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5370872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoppyAlexander/pseuds/PoppyAlexander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When you were fifteen, what was your favourite song?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Perfect Minutes

A cold, rainy Saturday, late morning, and John's feeling cooped-up and squirrelly. He starts fiddling with his mp3 collection--so vast it owns the largest share of his laptop's memory--and longs for the old days, flipping through the upright row of cardboard record sleeves, soft at the corners and sleek-shiny all over, rearranging them on their shelves: alphabetically by artist, chronologically by release date, chronologically by acquisition date, by genre, even by sleeve colour. "Click to Sort" has never seemed so pointless.

John misses making mix-tapes for his school chums, the girls he wanted to date, the American pen-pals who sent him hand-pasted and photocopied zines with titles like "As Is," "Cometbus," "Lime Green Bulldozers," and "Craphound." Even an over-heavy wallet full of every-one-the-same, irridescent-metallic CDs was something he could pick through, shuffle, polish with a chamois.

He taps his fingers restlessly against the tabletop, staring at the list: Artist, Album, Song, Genre. Kids today would never know the joy of going to a shop to buy the newest Cure record, then just flipping through the stacks, finding some wild or sexy or hilarious cover art, flipping it around to read the track list at the back, bringing it home, something new and unexpected, and a bit risky. "You might also like." Fella at the local records-and-comics shop would be the one to suggest things to you, back then, and he didn't need an algorithm; he was just your mate, knew what you liked, knew you.

"Sherlock?"

"Mm." Sherlock's head is in a book, or rather the book is on his head, as he is dozing on the sofa and the book is slowly collapsing toward his face as his hands slacken around its binding and covers.

"When you were fifteen--"

"Don't remind me."

"What was your favourite song?"

John expected him to reply with some classical something-or-other John had never heard of, or to say that pop music was for idiots, or to tell him to shut up. Sherlock said none of these things.

"'Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough.'"

John bit his lips, drew his head back in his surprise, clicked his mouse a few times. He turned up the volume of his laptop's speakers.

"That song was old, even then," he commented, and the opening bass-line of the song started up, with quietly-spoken love-talk over it.

"Didn't care. I was in a Michael Jackson phase."

The song swelled with synthesized disco-strings and one of MJ's yelps, and John couldn't help but bounce his shoulders, roll his neck a bit. Sherlock's foot pulsed in time with the beat and his mouth silently shaped the words.

Before the first verse had ended, John was out of his chair, feet shuffling, hips rocking, popping his fingers. When the chorus came along, Sherlock joined him, shoulders rolling, elbows rising and falling away from his torso, dressing gown shimmering around him.

By the time song ended, they were breathless with exertion and bad falsetto singing and laughter, the sheer joy of the thing, the magic in a soulful, funky disco tune three decades old making them forget the cold and the rain--and themselves--for four perfect minutes.


End file.
